Kathryn Cramer

NYRSF.com Back Up

For any of you who were wondering why you couldn't raise the site of The New York Review of Science Fiction, (nyrsf.com) it's back up now. I needed to move from expensive web forwarding to cheap web forwarding and this involved correcting to old records with Network Solutions. But the domain name is working again.

Urban Tapestry Kids' Concert

I've made a separate photo album for the Urban Tapestry Kids' Concert at Boskone.

More Boskone Photos

I've uploaded a lot more Boskone photos. So far, my favorite is this shot of Linux God Eric Raymond:

Boskone Photos

I've created a Boskone 2005 photo album and uploaded some pictures David took last night. I'll add more as we take them.

George R. R. Martin & Tony Lewis

Boskone contact info

Anyone needing to contact me at Boskone should use my panix account (kec at panix dot com). Our Powerbook is too old to use a browser that will access my Gmail account. But I am readin mail sent to panix.

Boring Adminsitrative Detail

I moved my domain, but it turns out that I did it wrong. I thought Domain Mapping was something that happened when you turned on Web Forwarding, but apparently it is a separate service which I must arrange for through Network Solutions. Hence, the permalinks give the same URL (www.kathryncramer.com) as the main page. I'll fix this early next week.

Boskone?

We're supposed to attend Boskone this weekend. David is definitely going, since we have a dealer's table.

Given that both kids are still sick, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to make it. I am scheduled to be on the program.

UPDATE: OK. I'll be there. (I may not have much of a voice though.)

Here's where to find me: First of all, we have a dealer's table, so David will be in plain sight much of the time. Second, here is my schedule:

Saturday 10:00 am Republic B: A Child Shall Lead Them: Children as SF Protagonists

How well do we avoid building kids who are just miniature adults? Is the advantage of worldbuilding for the reader as the child learns his own environment balanced by the problem of giving him any movement beyond the parental orbit? Are Paul Atriedes and Thorby Baslim too competent? Does Hermione Granger know too much? Can kids just be kids and still make a good story?
Michael A. Burstein, Orson Scott Card, Bruce Coville (m), Kathryn Cramer

Saturday 12:00 noon Republic B: Fiction for Free-Range Children

What's wrong with most of the so-called "YA science fiction" published in the past twenty years? Consider the thesis that modern YA sf is mostly not science fiction. It isn't interested in kids going out, exploring the galaxy, and staying out there to change the universe. Instead, it wants children to go out into the galaxy, discover it's a really scary place, learn some lessons and come home to apply those lessons to home and family. Instead of socializing children to move outwards, these stories are socialising children to come home.

Orson Scott Card, Kathryn Cramer, Farah Mendlesohn (m), Jane Yolen

Saturday 1:00 pm Clarendon: Great SF Cover Art

We'll address both the general and the specific. In general, what makes for great cover art? Is it great illustration (and thus must it be realistic) or is it great creativity? (And why have abstracts like those of Richard Powers and Paul Lehr gone out of fashion?) The specific: Genre artists may receive recognition for a year's — or a lifetime's — achievement, but rarely for specific works. Let's remedy that right here. Each rave may include what made a favorite not only great art, but also a great cover for that book. Visual aids greatly encouraged.

Kathryn Cramer, Bob Eggleton, Irene Gallo, Joe Siclari (m)

Sunday 2:00 pm Hampton: The Latest in Short SF

Is short science fiction becoming more literary? What styles and trends dominate today's magazines? Whose short fiction should be sought out? What makes a successful short science fiction story vs. fantasy story vs. horror story? And is anyone reading short fiction anymore?

Kathryn Cramer (m), Gavin Grant, David G. Hartwell, Kelly Link

I've moved my domain name.

I moved kathryncramer.com to point over here this morning. I should write more about it, but both kids are home sick and I'm not feeling too well myself. More later.

A list of new links to existing posts is at the URL for the former main page of this stite www.kathryncramer.com/wblog.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Peter, who worked hard on his valentines over the weekend, woke up this morning with a sore throat and a fever and so can' go to school today. Here is one of the pictures hedrew for his valentines. (There are more in his Monster Gallery.)

(I've spent so much mental energy on figuring out the ins and out of moving sites around that I find myself with little brain space left to compose blog enties. I hope this phase will be over shortly.)

Epiphany

After a week of careful thought I have finally figured out how I'm going to finish moving my blog to Typepad without either abandoning my domain name (which is to say, my name with dom com appended) or leaving over 1,300 broken links behind me. When I have finished working it all out, I will write up a very calm, thorough set of instructions for dealing with situations like mine.

The Monster of This Morning

Peter presented me with this beautiful monster this morning. I would like it to be eight feet tall. I would like to send it around to have discussions with several computers that have been giving me trouble this morning. I would like the monster to heft the computers over its head and throw them in the snow.

After the monster has made my displeasure known to our computers, I would like it to visit Adobe and find the person who decided OS X didn't really need Adobe Type Manager. I would like the monster to make this a long, leisurely visit. I would like it to take the time to make my displeasure entirely clear. The rest of this fantasy is not so specific, but I think I would definitely like the monster to visit the person at Apple who decided that OS X could do without proper font handling. And I think I would like the monster to go to Microsoft, too.

That's all for now.

Confusion Photos

I have posted a lovely photo album of photos from Confusion (Troy, Michigan; January) where David and I were Fan Guests of Honor. Enjoy!

Emma Bull

Peter's Monster Gallery

I'm liking Typepad pretty well so far. This morning (when I should have been doing something else) I used it to make Peter a Monster Gallery for his wonderful drawings. There are many more, but here are five.

UPDATE: There are many more up now. Here's my favorite so far:

Here I Am!

So. I've taken the bold step of moving blog hosts from Your-Site.com to Typepad. It is a long story, but today was dramatic. My annual fee for Your-Site came due and, given that Movable Type was constantly spitting error messages when cgi scripts timed out and they had been promising me since August (it's February, right?) that real soon now they were going to upgrade to an amazing new server that would have all the upgraded software that would make my stuff run properly and I still couldn't even install MT Blacklist (oh, never mind, this is all too tiresome!), anyway, I couldn't see my way clear to paying for another year.

So I have moved. Now I have the big job of getting all my archives housed overe here. I have high hopes.

A Coming Move

I have reached a parting of the ways with this site's host, Your-Site.com. I have been waiting patiently for promised upgrades in service since August and have decided that life is too short to wait any longer and have decided not to renew my annual contract. I am considering migrating this site to Typepad. Does anyone have experience moving a large, established blog over there?